History of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 007593
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Surendranath Dasgupta
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Year: 1922
Total Pages: 2517
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 125 MB

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67
XI]
Recognition in Vedanta and Buddhism
two different times cannot serve to explain the idea of recognition, which presupposes the notion of persistence. If it were held that the two notions produce the notion of self-persistence through the notion of recognition, then that would mean that the Buddhist admits that one can recognize himself as "I am he." It cannot be said that, since the self itself cannot be perceived, there is no possibility of the perception of the identity of the self through recognition; for, when one remembers "I had an experience," that very remembrance proves that the self was perceived. Though at the time when one remembers it the self at the time of such memory is felt as the perceiver and not as the object of that self-perception, yet at the time of the previous experience which is now being remembered the self must have been itself the object of the perception. If it is argued that it is only the past awareness that is the object of memory and this awareness, when remembered, expresses the self as its cognizer, then to this it may be replied that since at the time of remembering there is no longer the past awareness, the cognizer on whom this awareness had to rest itself is also absent. It is only when an awareness reveals itself that it also reveals the cognizer on whom it rests; but, if an awareness is remembered, then the awareness which is remembered is only made an object of present awareness which is self-revealed. But the past awareness which is supposed to be remembered is past and lost and, as such, it neither requires a cognizer on which it has to rest nor actually reveals such a cognizer. It is only the self-revealed cognition that also immediately reveals the cognizer with its own revelation. But, when a cognition is mediated through memory, its cognizer is not manifested with its remembrance1 So the self which experienced an awareness in the past can be referred to only through the mediation of memory. So, when the Prabhakaras hold that the existence of the self is realized through such a complex notion as "I am he," it has to be admitted that it is only through the process of recognition (pratyabhijñā) that the persistence of the self is established. The main point that Vidyaranya Muni urges in his Vivarana-prameya-samgraha is that the fact of recognition or the experience of self-identity cannot be explained by any assumption of two separate concepts, such as the memory of a past cognition or cognizer and the present awareness.
svayamprakāśamānam hi samvedanam aśrayam sadhayati na tu smrtivişayataya para-prakāśyam. Vivarana-prameya-samgraha, p. 78.
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